Why people compete in adventure races; Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body -- G. Fusil - creator of the Raid Gauloises, widely considered the first modern adventure race.
Eco-challenge -created by Mark Burnett- ran for 9 seasons starting in 1995. It aired for 2 weeks every 6 months. Most people don’t know this because 5 years later the show was overshadowed by its flashier bigger brother that beat the Emmy award winning show into submission.
It filmed races held in many diverse locations such as, British Columbia, Borneo, Australia, Fiji and so on. Competing in adventure races myself, I was taken in by the show immediately. It provided its audience with insight to the skills required to be a pro-adventure racer; orienteering and route planning, rope and protection set up for rappels and rock climbing. How to make quick decisions from break downs on bikes or boats. Or how to deal with injuries in the middle of a jungle.
It also shed light on the physical fitness and metal preparation that is required to compete for 24-hours a day, over a rugged 500km course while transitioning from trekking, whitewater canoeing, horseback riding, sea kayaking, scuba diving, mountaineering and mountain biking. These people were inspirational and true survivors!
Adventure racers, like Ian Anderson, are the type of people that you want to be with if your plane crashes in the jungle or mountains. They have the knowledge, drive and skill to apply to any survival situation. Obviously you already know why I am repeating that they are Survivors. The show that beat Eco-challenge in ratings and lead to its demise was the annoying, dull and pointless show; Survivor.
This is where Burnett had a choice; 1. Fight for the little guy (eco-challenge) and its athletes along with its devoted viewers and let the bigger show get bigger, or 2. drop the weaker show and only concentrate on the new big thing where the money was. Well we all know what he decided on. Survivor opened the flood gates to the reality era we are in presently. Enough to make you want to puke. Reality shows today are the lowest form of television. And for those people who believe that 99% of reality shows are not scripted I have one word, Naive.
Two separate groups, that are linked as parasite and host, killed eco-challenge. The host; greedy USA Networks, the parasite; couch potatoes and their tater tots. The North American couch potato sits day and night watching TV that reduces their minds to mush and continuously expands their waste line.
So even though it wasn’t fully Burnett’s fault that eco-challenge was canceled it was his fault for brining reality TV to North America. Mark Burnett should suffer a horrible after life where the original survivor winner, Richard Hatch will dance naked around him on some deserted island with nothing but rancid raw fish and rice to eat for all of eternity.
Instead of watching a show like Eco-Challenge, that displays athletes revealing their talents and ability to suffer, some -obviously many- North Americans’ would rather watch a bunch of average people bickering, arguing, plotting and stabbing each other in the back. Why? Most likely because they believe they could be that person.
Once on the show they would compete and outwit their fellow competitors to win. If not first place they might make the final 3, and if that was not possible at least they could say they were on the show Survivor and maybe become an actor. Whoopty-fricken-doo!
Of course to make it on the show they would have to peel themselves off the couch for more then five minutes, to sit yet again at their computer, and fill out the application. But wait that would take initiative and energy something the average potato coucher doesn’t have.
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